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What is Take Profit and Stop loss?

Nov 15, 2021 06:07

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Take Profit: A take-profit order (T/P) is a type of limit order that specifies the exact price at which to close out an open position by booking a profit. If the price of the security does not reach the limit price, the take-profit order does not get filled.

Take-profit orders are the most efficient way of executing a trade and taking the human element out of managing an open position and very popular with short-term traders who monitor daily or even hourly price moves.

Stop loss: No one wish to lose money when they’re playing in the market. Thus it is important to set a floor for your position in a security. This is where stop loss comes in. A stop-loss is designed to limit an investor’s loss on a security position. 

By using stop loss and take profit orders in tandem you can control the risk Vs reward ratio of any trade you enter.

Basics of a Take-Profit/Stop loss:

Most traders use take-profit in conjunction with stop-loss to manage their open positions. If the security rises to the take-profit point, the Take profit is executed and the position is closed for a gain. If the security falls to the stop-loss point, the Stop loss is executed and the position is closed for a loss. The difference between the market price and these two points helps define the trade’s risk-to-reward ratio.

Take-profit orders/Stop loss is executed at the best possible price regardless of the underlying security’s behavior. On the other hand, If the security could start to breakout higher, but the T/P order might execute at the very beginning of the breakout and Stop loss might get executed even at small market fluctuation, resulting in high opportunity costs.

Take-profit/Stop loss orders are best used by short-term traders interested in managing their risk. This is because they can get out of a trade as soon as their planned profit target is reached or the price drops to the acceptable loss, these traders do not risk a possible future downturn in the market. Traders with a long-term strategy do not favor such orders because it cuts into their profits.

  • Maximize profit with Take profit: Take Profits allows the user to maximize the profit by exiting a trade as soon as the market is at a favorable price.
  • Stop Losses can limit losses: Stop-loss helps in preventing you from losing too much of your investment in a single trade. They benefit you because the market is very unpredictable. At one moment everything could be going very well, and in another, it could start falling without any reason. It allows you to decide what amount you are willing to risk.
  • Control of your account: By Setting Take profit and stop loss, you can have better control of your account.
  • Monitor multiple deals: By setting Take profit and stop loss, you can manage multiple trades easily.
  • Executed automatically, at any time: The benefit of using a take-profit and stop loss is that the trader doesn’t have to worry about manually closing a trade or second-guessing themselves.
  • Easy to implement: It is simple to use the Take profit and stop loss.
  • Miss out of higher profit: Although you’d be walking away with a profit, it is possible that a take-profit order would be executed just before prices continue to rise further, meaning you’ll miss out on a healthier margin. 
  • Not good for long-term traders: Take profit and Stop loss are a short-term strategy to guarantee you make some level of profit quickly which is not suitable for long term traders.
  • Market fluctuation: The main disadvantage is that a short-term fluctuation in a security’s price could easily activate the stop loss. After the stop loss is triggered, Market might reverse direction and rally in our intended direction.
  • Slippage: In high volatile times, stop loss might be triggered at the next available which might led to more loss than desired.
  • Control to Computer: The biggest problem with stop losses and take profit is that you have given up control of your order to the computer as sometimes human control can work well in unpredictable market moves.

How to use Take profit and Stop loss?

As already discussed, Both Stop Loss and Take Profit orders are basically you as a trader telling your broker when to close your trades. 

Both stop loss and take profit orders might seem very easy at one glance. 

You simply have to take note of how much you are willing to lose or gain and set them accordingly, right? Speaking technically, yes. But without proper research on how to book profits in trading, it’s likely that you will miss out on the majority of gains.

Stop loss and take profit orders may seem very easy to learn but they are quite hard in practice. They require months of learning about technical analysis. This is when a trader need to look at charts of different assets, and through calculations with different formulas determines when a currency pair can reach its peak price, and when it could possibly decrease too much.
 
Most traders usually go for stop-loss orders only in the beginning. This helps them experience the market much more even though they lose a bit for not placing take profit orders.
 
It’s important to remember that no matter how confident you are about the trade, a profitable trade position can go bad within seconds, and a small loss can turn into a large one in just a fraction of minutes. Stop loss and take profit are simply unavoidable tools to use when trading.

Moving on to placing stop loss and take profit, we will first try to understand types of setting them.

Types of Stop loss/Take profit:

A percentage stop loss/take profit order is exactly as the name sounds. Instead of instructing the broker at what exchange rate you’d like your order to be closed, you simply instruct the percent of your entire invested amount you are ready to lose in case of Stop loss or ready to get as reward in Take profit.

For example imagine that you are trading at $10000 and are ready to lose $1000 from it. Without telling at what exchange rate the stop loss has to be set, you simply say that your stop loss is 10%. It is exactly the opposite for take profit. This is how to use stop loss/take profit in percentage.

A chart stop loss/take profit is commonly used by the traders. In this, suppose you are looking at a GBP/USD chart. The exchange rate is 1.3527, but you think that it may increase to a maximum price of 1.3650 in an hour but you’re not really sure and you also predict that it might drop to 1.3400. So, what you do is you place a take profit at 1.3650 and stop loss order at 1.3400. If the exchange rate raises to the placed amount then the trade might automatically close with booking the profit or it drops to this amount, then it might as well cut your losses short with this order.

Technical knowledge is required for predicting this, but why not use take profit/stop loss in Forex trading when it can earn/save you so much?

A volatility stop loss/take profit is when a trader tells how much volatility of an asset is fine for them. Volatility means the frequency and timing of the change in the price of a currency pair. If it does so every second with quite a lot of pips, then it’s considered to be high volatility. The opposite would be considered low volatility.

It is up to you to calculate how much volatility is too much for you and tell your broker your preferences on the volatility level.

These are the different ways of setting stop loss/take profit i.e telling your broker on when to exit your trade. You can choose any of the above whichever seems comfortable for you.

Final words:

Do not forget Take profit/Stop loss is an important trading tool in your rich trading portfolio. Stop-loss prevents you from losing too much of your investment in one trade. Take profit helps you to lock-in what you’ve already earned. They are very beneficial to you because the market is very unpredictable. At one moment everything might seem favorable for you and in another, it could start falling without any reason.

Moreover, you’re not always near your computer, so you can’t close trades that have caused loss. A stop loss would close them for you and prevent your account from taking too much damage.

Rely on it in order to get better control of your deals and emotions. It may take some time to learn the basics of SL/TP orders but when it is done, you are left with another must-have trading skill so start practicing it now.

Happy trading!

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